PDaddy wrote:Cavalier wrote:
This is the most retarded post I've read here. We are going to law school to make money to afford big homes, summer homes, nice cars, and trophy wives, not to free Tibet and save the whales. If you want to dedicate your life to social justice or some other trivial goal you shouldn't be going to law school.
You must be a 19-year-old rich white kid from the Hamptons. That's the type of person dumb enough to read a discourse on "social justice" in the words of my post. My post has nothing to do with social justice per se, and everything to do with the mentality that we should let law firms and other employers have so much control over our destiny. I like money; I love money. If you want to make money, go do it. But have a plan besides "I hope 'school X' accepts me because, otherwise, I am fucked! I will never get the '
job' I want otherwise."
Do you get it?
There's room for everyone to do what they want to do in the profession, and someone has to serve corporate clients. This is not about telling anyone that there's something wrpong with BigLaw. It's about people thinking so narrowly. If you think that's retarded, I really feel sorry for you.
Another thing: I realize that many of you will disagree with whatever I say because of my self tar, and that's cool. But you'll do yourself a huge favor if you accept the fact that A) I know I make a lot of sense and that's not going to change because people disagree with me, B) I am not going anywhere, C) you know when you shut the computer down that you agree with much of what I say but are too much of a coward to admit it in the public sphere, and D) some of you only disagree with me because I'm black.
If I were a white boy, you guys would be saying..."Dude...ur smack is so on point!" It's all good...just recognize that I know these things. I'm a soldier...and I'm much too strong for anyone here to intimidate me or try to fool me into thinking that I am the one with the problem.
And to the dude who thinks you are not powerful enough to create anything just being who you are...why don't you say that in one of your essays to the law schools...see if they accept you.
JFK had a low LSAT score and failed the bar like three times. He was rich and connected, but no different from any of us otherwise. Give me the guy with no money who rolls up his sleeves and works his ass off over the spoiled, rich prettyboy every time.
Its pretty clear that you know somewhere between fuck all and jack shit about how things like 'experience' or 'connections' or 'totem pole systems' work. I'll state up front that I am not an expert on these things. But I have enough of a grounding in reality to know that having this thing you call a 'job' isn't just about clocking in, doing work, clocking out, and collecting a paycheck. Having a 'job', particularly one in BigLaw enables an associate to develop connections that open doors to better employment, a more fruitful and satisfying career, and the chance to do what you want to do. Simultaneously, it enables you to gain practical lawyering experience. While most of us here will probably participate in clinics and externships as 2/3Ls, this is not the same as going to work everyday. Having a job in BigLaw, MidLaw, or even ShitLaw enables you to work along much more experienced attorneys, who (should) have thorough knowledge of their practice area. This creates a situation where the associate/junior attorney is able to learn some of the tricks of a particular area. Upon leaving the firm, and either joining a specialized practice or establishing their own, the attorney has a network of highly qualified, well established attorneys and clients that s/he can go to for assistance. The attorney has an established client base (hopefully). The attorney has clients who can help generate new clients. Most importantly, the attorney should have made significant progress towards paying off the cost of student loans, and should have a number of cases to which s/he can point when discussing their own expertise in a given area of law. These are some of the benefits of the traditional system. I am not making a value judgment about the way things are set up, I am simply pointing out what I have observed.
Now, your two main posts do not even begin to acknowledge the validity of the system as it is currently set up. I do agree with two of your overall assertions though, which seem to be: do not to get caught up in the material comforts a good job can bring, and to focus on using a JD to take an active, positive role in the community. But to assume that because a person has, for one reason or another, chosen to go the firm route AND to then argue that that person must not want anything more for their life than that job is horseshit. What you are doing is drawing a line and saying, "if a person goes route x, then it means y about them as a person." That simply isn't true. Sure, there are those who only want to practice corporate law. But again, there are also many who go the firm route because it is the fastest way to pay off law school loans, get financially established, and acquire the things I mentioned previously.
I also happen to agree with what seems to be your main point. That is, that rather than working for the man, we should be using our degrees to create our own reality, so to speak. I absolutely, 100% agree with that. There are many reasons, some having to do with pride, some having to do with sheer practicality, why this is true. But it is clear that you do not realize how many attorneys end up as solo practitioners. There are also plenty of attorneys who don't even practice law. They work as consultants, human rights workers, artists, and so on. Hell, if I'm lucky enough to get my songs published, I'll finish law school, but I probably won't practice. That being said, I think that you are a little too dismissive of the grey area. That grey area is the space between the PI and BigLaw. It is massive, and encompasses far more than attorneys (at least from my own observation) than either of those two areas do. Moreover, you need to recognize that TLS is inherently self-selecting. Its not called "Top Law Schools" for nothing. There are people here who are shooting to get as close as possible to the tip-top of the peak of legal practice. If not there, then at least into a position where they can accomplish their goals. Some motivations for this may be as basic as maintaining a lifestyle their parents afforded them growing up. Some may include purely altruistic motivations. But I'm willing to bet that for the vast majority of TLSers, it is a mix of many, many different motivations. Regardless, it is pretty dick to make a value call on a person's motivations. You may not agree, but its not up to you or anyone else to decide whose motivations have merit. This is the undercurrent I picked up in your posts, and man, if you maintain this perspective, I hope that we are never colleagues.
You make various claims about what people may or may not be thinking about you. Hint: you're making that shit up. You don't know what anyone is thinking. I'm willing to guess that it could be something like, "this guy is an idiot". Or perhaps, "LOL at this guy". Personally, I think its pathetic when a clearly intelligent person stoops to oscillating between playing the race card, being pedantic, and coming off as holier-than-thou. You may not have intended to present yourself that way, but that is what I see. Others may or may not agree. That beings said, drop the hubris. Doing so will help you to avoid the law school smack down that is almost certainly in your future.
